Posts by giovanni tiso
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A daily would be a very difficult starting point, but one could easily imagine a weekly news magazine that would be something like a quality version of The Listener.
Zing!
Love Keith's micropatronage idea, although $1 per article is pretty steep - you can get a whole newspaper these days for little more than that, and often it includes the marvellous blood pressure-raising properties of a column by Michael Laws, which cannot be beat.
But people are stingy (none more so than yours truly), and yes, subscription models have been tried and have failed all over the shop. Some sort of trust or endowment would be an interesting avenue, but for that kind of thing to be established somebody has to see a serious need. Personally I would say that there was such a need a few years ago, in spite of the excellent efforts of National Radio, but now we have a cohort of sexy, well informed, marvellous bloggers who are willingly to plug the holes for free. So unless they all went on strike all of a sudden, or were pressed into service a-la Ng, one could argue that we are pretty well served on the information front as things stand - except for the bloggers themselves, that is.
That said, by all means, count me in, I'd redirect the money of my Listener subscrition without batting either of my pretty eyelids.
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Adversity is a severe instructor, set over us by one who knows us better than we do ourselves, as he loves us better too.
Would that be Russell then?
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Sorry, Craig, I think you missed a bit in the Burke quote. Allow me to complete:
Adversity is a severe instructor, set over us by one who knows us better than we do ourselves, as he loves us better too. He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper. But whatever you do, please don't waste your time arguing with that Grant Dexter - that's like boxing with a mosquito.
Later, after a couple of brandies, he concluded: "That Grant Dexter, he sure is a dick".
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I'm resisting a temptation to link to the Italian coverage of the event, but I shall point out the delicious alliteration and rhyming of "Tette su motociclette". Chapeu, unsigned press agency person.
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She said that the pair of breasts she caught sight of were so "gross and obviously fake" (her words not mine) she felt like thanking Steve Crow for reminding her why she loves her body, loves her life, and loves the sweetie-pie (my words not hers) that she's engaged to.
Fake tits: is there anything they cannot do?
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I think the fact that Russell et al are happy to use their names on PA and the fact that the quality of both posts and comments is uniformly high are not unconnected.
None of them are political activists. The fact that the gentlefolk who belong to a certain racist organisation happen to know who I am does not fill me me with dread but neither it fills me with joy, quite frankly.
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Not a typo, a deliberate misspelling. Reflective of their views around corporal punishment.
Fair enough. Makes them sound like a Yakuza version of the Huxtables though.
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You agree with Family Fist
It sounds like a tremendous organisation, how can I join?
(Not picking on typos, I go there a lot myself. Yesterday the AP described Joe Lieberman as "the former vicepresidential prick", which I thought was just great.)
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No, but without presuming to speak for O'Sullivan, I find it rather galling having my integrity questioned by people who don't even have the guts to sign their names at the bottom of their froth.
Used to happen to me all the time on Kiwiblog ...
Invective ain't the same thing as argument, though. I think it's perfectly okay for a political blogger to operate under a pseudonym, even advisable in some circumstances, then s/he will be judged on the merits of the arguments and the evidence. Anonymous posters who vent various brands of hate in forum discussions are a rather different breed. O'Sullivan's complaint is misdirected because The Standard stands behind its arguments, it just happens to be an author collective (think Wu Ming), it's not as if they couldn't be sued, among other things.
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what is it with people freaking out about non de plumes? does not having a target mean that that content of someone's argument is weaker?
Anonimity, cowardice, non-verifiable sources, blah blah. It's a very common complaint directed at the people who use the intertubes. Ironically, the practice of the unsigned editorial that most newspapers adopt is designed precisely to highlight the argument, rather than the author.
One of the best political columnists we had back home, probably the best ever, was a guy who operated with a pseudonym, Fortebraccio. Mean bastard, too, I'll transplant one of my favourite lines of his, just to give an idea.
The motorcade came to a stop, the car door opened. Nobody came out. It was Peter Dunne.